21 October 2018 12:00 AM

There's only one way we can escape from the German empire...

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column

Negotiation is a test of strength. And Britain is far weaker than the giant German empire that is the EU.

Sooner or later, if we truly want to get out of that empire, we are going to have to grasp this. Poor, hopeless Theresa May hasn’t a chance, not least because she has never really wanted to leave. So she flounders between wild fake militancy, adopted to protect her right flank, and pathetic weakness – her actual position.

But I have even less time for the posturing braggarts, on all sides of the question, who now pretend that their positions are so pure and wonderful that they cannot give an inch. The Europhiles are ghastly, especially their dangerous call for a second referendum.

It was one of them, the disastrous David Cameron, who lumbered us with the first referendum. Now, like a man with a crushing hangover who reaches with trembling hands for the bottle that gave it to him, they whimper for another one.

But worst of all are those who demand a total, pure exit from the EU, even if it means a catastrophic walkout with nothing agreed.

As I sometimes point out, I don’t recall seeing most of these heroes around when I was one of the few voices calling for British independence in the long years before 2016.

Back then, most of these born-again, all-or-nothing fanatics, in politics and the media, were keen allies of Mr Cameron, perhaps the worst Prime Minister this country has ever had.

Remember how he derided anyone who objected to the loss of national independence as silly old fools ‘banging on’, or as ‘fruitcakes’. Well, it seems, they are all fruitcakes now. Though their obsessions are strange.

I wanted to get out of the EU, and still do, because I believe continental law and forms of government will eventually destroy English law and our unique free Parliament.

I couldn’t give a farthing for the freedom to import chlorine-washed chicken from the USA, or fling our markets open wide to Asia. In fact, I rather fear it. I do not think that, by leaving the EU, we will suddenly export more. Why would that happen? Our goods are not especially cheap and we make little that the world actually wants. I think we will import more.

What I want to do is rip up our allegiance to the European Arrest Warrant, a grave breach of our ancient liberties which everyone seems to have completely forgotten about. I want to get rid of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, now our real Supreme Court. And I want to stop rubber-stamping European Commission directives and pretending they are our own laws. And I would also like to shake free of the crazy policy of pushing the EU eastwards into Ukraine and the Caucasus.

If Brussels and Washington really want a war with Russia, then let them have one. But Britain has no interest at all in reviving this grubby, aggressive conflict, which has already convulsed Europe twice in one century.

These aims can be achieved by doing what I have now been urging for months – the Norway Option. This needs no permission from Brussels. It formally takes us out of the EU, so fulfilling the referendum vote. It would make the Irish border as relaxed as the current frontier between Norway and Sweden, which is pretty relaxed. It frees us from three-quarters of EU interference in our laws and life.

It keeps us in the European Economic Area, so there is no risk to the economy. It frees us from the EU’s damaging Common Agricultural Policy and from the daylight robbery of the Common Fisheries Policy. It hugely cuts our contributions to Brussels.

But, thanks to strident, inflexible groups of MPs whose main concern is their future careers, it has barely been considered.

I can’t stop them. But if they manage to lead us into chaos and an economic crash, then I shall at least try to make sure that their selfish folly is not forgotten.

****

A whiff of decay swirls around Britain

I have often predicted that we would soon be applying for full membership of the Third World. But I think we may actually have secretly joined it.

In the last week, my regular railway line, in the throes of a vastly expensive and interminable modernisation, grossly behind time and over budget, was shut down.

Why? Because a test train ran along it and managed to pull down 500 yards of newly installed electric cable. But this was just an inventive new sort of mess. Normally it closes, or slows down to the speeds of the 19th Century, every few days for a ‘signal failure’ or because the weather is too hot, too cold or too windy, or because of mysterious disappearances of train crew. Are they being abducted by aliens?

While I endure this, I am unceasingly hectored by automated announcements, the latest being a creepily friendly voice that urges me to hold the handrail as I go up the stairs on the station footbridge.

The fewer and later the trains, the more announcements there are. But when everything goes totally wrong, silence falls, staff disappear and electronic screens go blank.

On my way to the station, I have to pick my way past unending roadworks (I do not think the three-mile journey has been free of these for a single day in the past three years). Most of the time nothing at all is actually happening, and it would take a trained archaeologist to work out what has changed from one week’s end to the next.

At the luxurious cinema in a newly built shopping mall (which took longer to complete than the Pyramids), buckets recently appeared to catch leaks from the ceiling after some moderately heavy rain. Its air-conditioning was overpowered by the summer heatwave, which is surely what it was built to deal with.

And ever and again, as I walk or bicycle down the streets of modern British cities, which are flashy and modern on the surface, my nose picks up the ancient, unmistakable smell of malfunctioning drains, which you might expect to encounter in Baghdad, Cairo or Bombay, but is something new here.

And if it’s not that, it is the equally unwelcome aroma of marijuana, that is now legal here in all but name.

Signed copies of my new book 'The Phoney Victory' and of all my books can now be ordered through Blackwell's *Oxford* Bookshop Contact customers.ox@blackwell.co.uk or 01865 (+44 1865) 333623.For unsigned copies, please go here

I am rather ashamed now by how unmoved I was by the original Moon landings in 1969.

It was only after I saw, in a Moscow museum, the tiny fire-blackened capsule in which Yuri Gagarin returned to Earth that it came home to me just how much courage astronauts needed to go into space.

The powerful if rather gloomy film First Man, in which Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong, is a useful reminder of an astonishing episode which I lived through, but which is now as remote as the first flight of the Wright brothers was to me in my childhood.

It’s also amusing to be reminded that man went to the Moon in supposedly archaic miles, feet and inches, not modern metres.

****

Why do British police forces keep going on about ‘county lines’, a fancy name for drug dealers from big cities extending their operations to small towns?

We don’t have ‘county lines’ in Britain, we have county boundaries, so the American phrase has no meaning here.

In any case, can any police chief explain why they still more or less enforce the law against selling drugs, but not the law against buying them? The engine of the whole trade comes from the money handed over by buyers. So why are buyers left alone? It makes no sense. And it doesn’t work.

Since I published my collection of foreign reports, 'Short Breaks in Mordor' as a (very crude and basic) e-book some years ago, several readers have said how they wished it was available as a proper three-dimensional book. I have good news for them. Over the last few months, thanks to some much-valued help from a friend with a much better grasp of technology than I shall ever have, I have now published 'Short Breaks' as a print-on-demand paperback. It is available here: https://amzn.to/2R2LaYn

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Now more than a century ago, in 1900, Jerome K Jerome, author of 'Three Men in a Boat', published 'Three Men On The Bummel' about a cycling tour of Germany - in which he prophetically observed:

'Germans good, kind, amiable loveable people. Fortunate in having had good governance. If anything is to go wrong it will be with the governing machine. Its idea of socialism is closer to despotism. They could help the world be a better place. Revere duty. See themselves as a soldier with the policeman as his officer. A blind obedience to everything in shiny buttons. The policeman tells him when to cross the street, how to cross a bridge. If the policeman was not there I would expect him to sit down and wait until the river had passed.'

>>> There are undoubtedly differences between Germany and the UK in their legal and political systems. However, I do not accept that these differences translate into a discernible feeling for citizens of Germany that they are less free than their British counterparts <<< [writes Henry L'Elplattenier]

I wonder if German citizens don't have that feeling, because they are used to it (or know any different): They wouldn't give a second thought about not washing their car on a Sunday; or insisting on waiting for the "red man" (if we can still call it that), before crossing even the quietest of roads; or being obliged to carry ID cards. They wouldn't dream of denying access to a chimney sweep who demands to enter one's home; or retaining the ashes of deceased loved one at home.

My German friends tell me there's a wry expression in Germany, which translates: "Everything is forbidden... apart from that, do what you like"

As for Germany efficiency: While this stereotype does hold a lot of truth-- how overdue and over-budget is the Bradenburg Airport?

This is also anecdotal, but my three grandchildren all quoted the same reason when recovering from the outcome of the 2016 referendum and seeking the reaction of their friends in similar age groups (22-26). They all voted, but many friends didn't bother for that very same reason!

As you say, Jenny, the vote to set up the Welsh Assembly was passed by 50.3% of the vote to 49.7%. The difference in total votes cast in favour of either side was just 6,721. Not only that, but the turnout was just 50.22%.

There were, though, no calls for a second referendum. Those opposed to the proposal simply accepted the verdict and people got on with setting up the Assembly, which, in my view, has simply resulted in jumped up local councillors, whom one wouldn't trust beyond deciding on the location of public conveniences in a village, deciding on matters of considerably greater importance.

This is only anecdotal, but there were many people who simply did not bother to vote because they could not conceive of such a half-baked idea being passed: hence the low turnout. I have no doubt that, had the turnout been even 55%, the result would have been different, as just about all those who really wanted the Assembly voted for it, whilst those who didn't want it, in large part, also failed to register a vote. However, passed the idea most certainly was and, in a democracy, you have to accept the result: the indolence and apathy of those who choose not to vote cannot be used as an excuse to invalidate a result.

Further to Steve Shawcross's comment: Back in 1997, there was a referendum to permanently change the governance of Wales. This proposal was passed with just 50.3% vote-share. I don't recall howls of protest at this, or calls for a percentage threshold, or a second referendum; the opposing faction accepted the result, and thence Senadd was created.

Mrs B, yes, the data protection is so absurd now, it really has got itself in such a silly, unhelpful position. I have been in the position of being almost looked down on when I have called my surgery for my adult children as if, once they reach 18, I no longer care about them! All this unreasonable secrecy is to stop parents learning if their daughters are having underage sex or get pregnant! That's what it started out protecting and now it's been extended to encompass so much more.

A while ago, I was asked to give my explicit permission to allow a hospital to share any information about me, with my GP, should I find myself being treated in hospital. When asked this, my immediate thought was, surely you have always been able to discuss things relevant to any treatment? Why am I being asked such a self evidently stupid permission. Of course I want the hospital and my GP to be allowed to talk to each other about my potential needs or treatment!

Apparently the two cannot do this without your permission so I hate to think what may have happened to anyone unable to communicate this, should they be rushed to hospital which would need your medical history from your surgery!

Our host's argument for adopting a Norwegian-style arrangement after Brexit is compelling. It is interesting to note though, that Norway's PM Erna Solberg believes that such a deal would not be beneficial/suitable for the UK... even going as far as suggesting it's pointless leaving the EU, if the UK is signing to a Norway-style deal.

I makes me wonder if it's genuine and friendly advice-- or she has hidden agenda (perhaps not wanting the UK to upset the cosy EFTA apple-cart)?

I can imagine that if the 2016 EU ref had been held with 66% rule, and that Leave had won with (let's say) a 68% vote share; then hardcore Remainers would be saying the threshold should be 70%, or 75% for a second vote. And why not? No less logical than an abitrary 66%.

WIth regards to a clear majority, all that's needed for a majority is +1 vote. In the actual Brexit referendum of 2016, it was +1 mutiplied by 1,269,501-- a clear enough majority. (That it was the largest electorate endorsement for anything ever in the UK, notwithstanding)

-"Exactly. And this contributor has provided no valid evidence to challenge that point."-
Posted by: Henry L'Eplattenier | 31 October 2018 at 12:41 PM

It's one opinion. How was that point demonstrated in the first place?

Published in 2016: Heiko Maas, the German Federal Minister of Justice, was unable to finish his Labor Day celebration speech on the 1st of May as he was loudly booed and chased off the stage by the German people. The people repeatedly shouted "Traitor", "Leftist Rat", "Get out!", "We are the People" and "Maas must go!", eventually getting him to cancel his speech and flee to his armored vehicle escorted by his armed bodyguards. Maas is considered one of the biggest proponents of expanding censorship laws, demanding prosecution, fines and jail-time for everybody posting "hate speech" on social media.

adeledicnanader writes: "The point made originally was "a discernible feeling *for citizens of Germany* that they are less free than their British counterparts." - Henry L'Eplattenier 21 October 2018 at 05:33 PM [+ my *emphasis*] - not Henry L'Eplattenier's opinion that they aren't."

- Exactly. And this contributor has provided no valid evidence to challenge that point.

Vikki b
Do agree with your comment and your comment on data protection, is one I intended to write about here.
Why because you are right about how those very people who are the family carers who are often relied on to care are indeed being denied by, " sniffy" barrier at reception.
There is no leeway following orders.
The person may be technically adult, but still reliant on parent. Another close family member who has also been involved in care will be denied being seen to raise concerns until tere is a letter from parent or one who has had to obtain power of attorney even if caring, for the adult, the one to make appointments, get and collect prescription.
As well as in one friends case also involved in care or the unwell person's child.
I have a friend who cari g for an adult has to jump through hoops, because of data protection.
It is not helping the vulnerable with long term issues when they reach adulthood either. Without full picture.
Going back many years to 90's I accompanied my birth mum, she had mental health issues, to have a CT. scan.
I was with staff and shown the screen which showed my late mum had had a mini stroke. T.I.A.
However when they realised I was her daughter and not carer from home they informed me I shouldn't have seen the screen!

As the wife of a near 20 year retired bobby, who was then dissallusioned as many of his colleagues tgen , you can imagine how we feel now!
40 years living in the same area, near where I grew up. That alone gives great insight to changing times, without other insight!

-"I was in fact interested in this contributor's perception of Michael Stürzenberger's message."-

As a debating tactic.

-"Michael Stürzenberger's message is that the religion of Islam is a fascist ideology similar to the Nazi regime. Had he been aiming at Judaism rather than Islam, such a message would have clearly been antisemitic, according to the IHRA definition. This is evidently an expression of religious hatred, which means that it could potentially also be punished in the UK under laws I have previously already referred to in another post."-

Post war Germany could ban and destroy National Socialism ideology and all its books and symbols (denazification) as it wasn't a religion per se, otherwise there could have been millions of refugee Nazi asylum seekers fleeing religious persecution and claiming human rights.

The existential threat and common denominator of religious and political totalitarianism is a propensity for mass murder.

To quote from Orwell's "The Freedom of the Press:

"The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is every opinion, however unpopular — however foolish, even — entitled to a hearing?
"These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you.
"I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech — the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don’t convince me and that our civilisation over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice.
"From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency.
"Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen."

-"Therefore my point that the UK is not discernibly more free than Germany still stands."-

The point made originally was "a discernible feeling *for citizens of Germany* that they are less free than their British counterparts." - Henry L'Eplattenier 21 October 2018 at 05:33 PM [+ my *emphasis*] - not Henry L'Eplattenier's opinion that they aren't.

Mrs B, "I keep seeing unelected types like Campbell on the politics and news media, telling us what he thinks we think."

Absolutely! I can't stand him, the sheer nerve. Especially as he was such a toad during the Blair years with all his 'spin'. I have no interest in anything that man has to say, ever. The arrogance of him and those like him is breath taking.

adeledicnander writes: "Websearching has made putting questions as a debating tactic redundant."

- I was in fact interested in this contributor's perception of Michael Stürzenberger's message.
Michael Stürzenberger's message is that the religion of Islam is a fascist ideology similar to the Nazi regime. Had he been aiming at Judaism rather than Islam, such a message would have clearly been antisemitic, according to the IHRA definition. This is evidently an expression of religious hatred, which means that it could potentially also be punished in the UK under laws I have previously already referred to in another post. Therefore my point that the UK is not discernibly more free than Germany still stands.

By the way, Michael Stürzenberger was subsequently acquitted, which only adds weight to the point I am making.

Websearching has made putting questions as a debating tactic redundant.

The message is explained in detail in the YouTube interview.

Coincidentally it addressed whether one is right to -"accept that these differences translate into a discernible feeling for citizens of Germany that they are less free than their British counterparts."- Henry L'Eplattenier | 21 October 2018 at 05:33 PM

In its politically motivated progressive denial of ancient rights, EU founders ensured that, in direct contrast to the Constitution of the USA, it *shall* 'make law abridging the freedom of speech and of the press and the right of the people peaceably to assemble [including now electronically] and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances'. And even, recently, and with a straight face - in Orwellian verisimilitude - strictures against laughing.

Vikkib
I do get so fed up when we are told that the referendum has caused division in the country.
The reason for the shock at the vote to Leave was that politicians, Lords, media, have been out of touch with the mood in communities, outside London for years.
No matter the party.
I keep seeing unelected types like Campbell on the politics and news media, telling us what he thinks we think.
I loved the This Week programme where he was pulled up on the," peoples march" when it was linked to the million or so "People's march" who voted against the Iraq war.
He didn't seem that interested into taking that into account serving under Blair!
How do these people get so so much air time?
700,000 as opposed to 17.4 million.
They can spin it out how much they want, hawking around studios, to thwart democracy, for that it is what he and others are doing.

adeledicnander writes: "Michael Stürzenberger would no doubt differ, he shared a WW2 era photograph of Hitler with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and was sentenced to six months in prison in Germany - to international condemnation - and, as chance would have it, recently interviewed by Katie Hopkins on YouTube."

Mrs B, "Your policeman on the beat , your parent , your teacher would have pulled you up, set you straight.
More courteous, hat doffing giving up seat for elders..."

I think this is one of the most destructive things Blair and his new style Labour, encouraged. Who now dares to tick off any young people? The very young, have Mums who are so outraged if you show any sign of displeasure at the behaviour of their child. And older ones, often in groups, and potentially dangerous and aggressive. Should they turn on you, who's there to help? Certainly not the police, who in earlier times, may well be only a street away and nearby.
The sad thing about our modern police 'service' and all that it means, is that it won't be long before those older policemen who knew it as the 'force' it once was, will have disappeared into retirement and new recruits will never have known it as such.

To aid our new society where people are disconnected from each other, we also have the revolting 'data protection' which seems to be there to keep those directly close to us, like our children and parents, at a distance so far removed from how we used to be. The result, important information about those children, who you are directly responsible for by law, until they come of age,(which government wish to make ever younger) and family members or friends, is now closed to you, unless by explicit permission from them.
The obvious example of this is health issues and your GP so that when you need to help those in your care, you are denied even the simplest of requests, tartly told by sniffy reception staff that they can't discuss the patient with you. You can get round this by having permissions on record at the surgery, but it is the affront, that is caused when you are trying to help those close to you, especially, if something urgent crops up before you have done this.

We have become a society where an attitude of 'it's none of my business' prevails which is why people 'don't get involved' even if someone needs help (as PH recently. He helped, but others probably passed by.). And it is all wrapped up by fear of the 'Claim Culture', now that we have endless insurance companies and 'ambulance chasing lawyers' who may sue us for something. Or worse, we may be accused of sexual harassment if we actually touch anyone else.

-"There are undoubtedly differences between Germany and the UK in their legal and political systems. However, I do not accept that these differences translate into a discernible feeling for citizens of Germany that they are less free than their British counterparts."-

Michael Stürzenberger would no doubt differ, he shared a WW2 era photograph of Hitler with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and was sentenced to six months in prison in Germany - to international condemnation - and, as chance would have it, recently interviewed by Katie Hopkins on YouTube.

Vikkib
I grew up knowing it as a force. Know the country beat days, know the estate beat days and it's workings.
I think I have a good understanding of what meddling in a system has brought us to.
It brings me great sadness that a retreat from the beat, has resukted in less safe communities.
You police from the beat up. Know your community.
CCTV is present in particular areas of old beats.
You become glad, when crime and because of " new" crime that you couldn't believe you'd see allowed to take hold on streets, that CCTV is there, even if you don't walk in those areas.

You have to ask why would governments politicians , afforded much more security than the ordinary folk, want things to change, allow importation of crimes, not seen on our streets, in our communities?
A"service" that is charged with picking up the fallout from, tge sort of social engineering that changed many behaviours on estates.
The politicians ove the years that changed the schooling that sent out,on the whole respectful ,courteous young.
To today when we still have pockets of community, yet not far away, we are aware of why we yearn for the old system, because we see the creep and know the cars, blue lights flash past and thosecwho served, whose young grew up on the estates, know that times were much better, for estates.
You listen to Andrew Marr yesterday, talking of when we used to gave courteous language after vicious language comes from Consertive leavers toward May and Remain language to Caroline Flint.
Which to me isn't about the result of referundum, but of watching many partsof society eslecially TV grow coarser.
Your policeman on the beat , your parent , your teacher would have pulled you up, set you straight.
More courteous, hat doffing giving up seat for elders...

Well, I'm not qualified to provide the answer to questions of a vague nature, particularly as 'doomed' can presumably mean different things to different people.

I vaguely remember a 'we're all doomed' line from Dad's Army that was, I assumed at the time, often aimed at a somewhat hapless sassenach Home Guard officer.
In the case in question I assume it was meant to indicated worse off than we were in the past, or worse off than we were led to believe we were going to be.

Whatever, I imagine Germany, with its better infrastructure and a more skilled workforce, will be less 'doomed' than most.

'Germany has no guarantees of free speech' -"Expressions or racial and religious hatred are also prohibited in the UK. No significant difference there."-
Posted by: Henry L'Eplattenier | 26 October 2018 at 01:11 PM

The historic difference is the post second world war process of denazification of Germany in which National Socialism and all its books and symbols could be banned and physically destroyed. It being seen as a political rather than a religious ideology.

The end of WW2 was the subject of dispute in a recent European Parliament video clip of evident party politically manipulated speech laws mission creep, demanding that the opinion expressed not be laughed at.

(Nigel Farage found the assertions being made were laughable).

In the USA:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech , or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." - Amendment 1, Constitution of United States of America.

You appear to be in broad agreement with Peter Hitchens and Brian Meredith about the state of the nation, so perhaps you would be kind enough to answer this questionfor me, because BM either can't or won't do so.

PH says he wanted to leave the EU before the referendum and still does. He offers the Norway option as the only means of doing so without causing potential *future* damage to the nation's *future* prosperity. So far so good, but he is also on record as saying that this country is doomed, "finished completely" and has urged the younger generation(s) to leave while they still can. My question is this, if you believe the nation is doomed, why bother leaving the EU now? Surely it would make more sense to manage that decline as smoothly as possible by remaining a temporary vassal state of the "German empire" while that decline reaches its seemingly inevitable conclusion. If this country is *already* doomed, leaving the EU now is a journey to nowhere, so why make the effort. Do you agree?

Tom who writes about the moon landings. It's definitely odd that we did not return to the moon for such a long time. I think something happened there that we have not been to,d about. If you look at Neil Armstrong and the astronauts at the press conference on their return, you would expect them to be jubilant at the achievement, excited and enthusiastic. Instead you see men who look completely shaken, eyes down cast and as if they would prefer to be almost anywhere else.
Whatever the reason, their appearance is undeniable and there for all to see. What it means is something for speculation.

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